


Love Is Kinda Crazy

by jat_sapphire



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Episode: s04e06 Discovered in a Graveyard, First Kiss, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-03 23:48:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17887460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jat_sapphire/pseuds/jat_sapphire
Summary: ...with a spooky pair of lads like us.I'm quoting lyrics from a few different covers of "Spooky," because Dusty Springfield's second stanza is perfectly Bodie.





	Love Is Kinda Crazy

> _First you say no, I've got some plans for tonight,  
>  And then you stop and say, all right_

"Since we've got the evening off, just like real civil servants..." Doyle began.

"Not a drink, mate," Bodie answered, voice casual, easy. "Got a date, don't I?"

"Oh. I thought maybe we'd take in that war film. About Gallipoli."

Bodie didn't say anything for long enough for Doyle to look over at him and say, "Or a different one."

Bodie's face was blank and cool, but what he said was, "All right. Eat beforehand?"

"Yeah, I thought the Napoli. It's right round the corner from the cinema."

"You paying?"

Doyle shrugged. "Yeah, okay," he said.

"'M eating, then." Bodie grinned.

Doyle almost let it go, but asked in the end, "Bringin' the bird?"

"No." That seemed to be all Bodie was willing to say about it. Doyle grinned, but let it go, since he was getting what he wanted.

They ate spaghetti with meatballs almost the size of their fists, shared a bottle of house red, and Bodie finished with tiramisu. Then they went to the late show. The night was warmer than the weather report had predicted: almost humid. No lines were left in front of the cinema ... but _Gallipoli_ wasn't playing after all.

"That's all right, didn't want to see that anyway. What about that Monty Python one?" Bodie bent an eyebrow at Doyle.

"Not, though. Just Terry Gilliam. It'll be surreal."

"But funny, right?" They found plenty to laugh and murmur to each other about, anyway. Fortunately, there were only a few other people in the audience, and they were scattered at a distance.

Doyle felt warm and happy until he dropped Bodie off. Then, suddenly exhausted, he took himself to his dark flat and empty bed.

> _You always keep me guessing_  
>  _I never seem to know what you are thinking_  
>  _And if a girl looks at you_  
>  _It's for sure your little eye will be a-winking_  
> 

The next time they had a few free hours in the evening, they did go down to Bodie's local, a pub he favored for the number of single women who stopped there after work. Doyle didn't feel like pulling a bird tonight, talking up some stranger, so he just sipped his half and watched Bodie at it. You'd think there was a medal going, and if there were, Bodie would win it: gold in Flirting. He even extended his attentions to Doyle.

"Ah, c'mon, Ray," he wheedled, and Doyle knew he'd give in even when he found out what it was this time. He always did, didn't he?

That lit-up look, that smile... "What?" Doyle's mouth curved despite himself.

"Your round, innit?"

"That all?"

"Well." Those overlong lashes fell fetchingly on Bodie's cheek, as he bloody well knew. "Fancy some crisps."

Doyle took a deep breath. "All right." Turning away from their table, he felt the brush of Bodie's hand on his arse, and looked back.

"Ta," Bodie said.

By the time Doyle got back with the drinks and crisp packet, Bodie had a bird on each side of him and winked unrepentantly at Doyle, gesturing for him to sit beside the auburn-haired one. Doyle sighed, but took his assigned place. His assigned girl.

> _I get confused, I never know where I stand  
>  And then you smile and hold my hand_

Bodie kept looking at Doyle. One hand on his bird, usually visible, sometimes below the table, mouth on his mug or in her hair, but his eyes! They were fixed on Doyle more often than not. He kept waiting for the bird to object, but whatever Bodie was whispering in her ear seemed to be keeping her happy, giggling and squirming. His own bird seemed tired and uninterested, so he wasn't surprised when she excused herself, but he was amazed when the other girl got up as well. Kissed goodbye, still seemed to want Bodie, but left anyway. Doyle made a not-understanding-this face, and Bodie shrugged goodhumouredly.

"Office opens early tomorrow."

"Disappointing," Doyle said sympathetically, but Bodie just shrugged again.

"Luck of the draw, that's all."

Bodie was driving. Doyle got in the passenger seat, feeling a bit off-kilter. That bright-eyed look of Bodie's, what did it mean? Doyle didn't know how to ask.

Before starting the engine, Bodie reached over, and the tips of his fingers rested on the back of Doyle's wrist, then near his knuckles. Doyle grasped the hand that had touched his. "What _is_ this?" he demanded.

"Was a good evening, don't you think?" Bodie sounded entirely normal.

Doyle shrugged, this time. "Yeah," he answered.

Bodie checked his mirror, started the car, and drove at his usual speed through the night streets. The windows were open. The warm air mussed their hair. They didn't speak until Doyle was getting out.

"Night, Ray. Half eight tomorrow, yeah?"

Just as well they hadn't brought the birds home, Doyle thought.

He didn't know why he should feel depressed.

> _If you decide some day  
>  to stop this little game that you are playin'_

"Who was it?" Bodie's eyes were like rocks, and his face was nearly as grey. If Doyle could have moved his hand, he would have put a soothing palm on his partner's sunken cheek. "Oh c'mon, Ray, for Christ's sake, who was it?"

All Doyle could do was try to smile reassuringly.

> _I'm gonna tell you all_  
>  _that my heart's been a-dyin' to be sayin'_  
>  _Just like a ghost,_  
>  _you've been a-hauntin' my dreams_

Doyle remembered Bodie beside him in the visions of his coma, and they were side by side again as Doyle dreamed, as he looked back and forward at the life he'd lived. But now something roused him from sleep.

Barely awake, Doyle tried to brush away whatever was tickling his mouth. But as soon as he lowered his hand, it started again, as light as a butterfly's wing, around the rim of his lips and back again. He grabbed at it and felt calluses, bone, fingers--Bodie's hand, this was. Bodie's fingertips teasing, tickling ... Ray frowned and opened his eyes. Bodie leaned in and kissed him gently.

As if he'd done it before. He hadn't, as far as Doyle knew, yet the kiss didn't seem entirely unfamiliar either. As if the Bodie in his coma had kissed him. "Wha-- wha'v," mumbled Doyle. Hadn't Bodie been on the sofa, too?

"I keep thinking." Bodie seemed embarrassed. Then he paused until Doyle had to speak.

"Know it's new to you, thinkin', but spit it out anyway." His voice was gravelly, hoarse with sleep.

And then Bodie just looked down and didn't say a word.

Not the time for joking, then. Remembering what had woken him, Doyle lifted a hand and just skimmed the shell of Bodie's ear, flicking the lobe and smoothing into his hair, which had evidently not been trimmed since Doyle had been shot.

"Tell us," he said softly.

"We ... someday we'll be off the streets. One way. Or another." Bodie's eyes were haunted, looked the way they had in the ambulance. "Lucky if we just retire."

They both knew it, had always known it. Doyle nodded, a tiny movement because he felt he'd frozen stiff. Bad enough when he'd been nearly killed himself, but he could hardly breathe when he let himself remember that it might as easily have been Bodie.

Doyle's fingers brushed Bodie's neck, and Bodie shivered, head to toe. "Ah, sweethea--" Doyle heard his own voice and choked off the endearment, sure his partner would hate it, but instead Bodie let his head drop beside Doyle's. His rough breath was like a whole long speech, a love poem, so the kiss he pressed into Doyle's ear was no surprise. Nor was his arm tightening around Doyle's waist, pulling them tighter together.

"I don't know how to let you go," he mumbled.

"Then don't." Doyle got their mouths aligned, a little awkwardly, but once they were kissing, they both forgot it. Or rather, it became part of the sweet unaccustomed freshness of this kiss, as if it were not only the first between the two of them, but the first either of them had ever given or received. Doyle kept smiling, breaking the kiss, pushing into Bodie's lips again. "Keep me," he barely spoke aloud, between parts of this kiss. "Keep me close, don't let me go." Bodie shook again, and Doyle didn't know whether the side of his neck was just that sensitive, or whether the movement came from Doyle's words, but that didn't really matter, did it? 

Bodie's eyes were clouded, unfocused, but alive and wet, nothing like those dead stones in the ambulance, and Doyle kissed each of them before Bodie lunged into another meeting of their mouths, another conversation without words, more vows exchanged by touch and taste.

"This is mad. Barking." Bodie's turn to try to talk and kiss at the same time.

"Mmm. Yes."

Bodie shook, with surpressed laughter, now. "It's mad to love anyone, our line of work."

"Dangerous. But we do anyway. You do, right?" Stupid to feel so anxious.

"Christ, yes," Bodie groaned and nibbled at Doyle's lips as if he were starving for them. And then his neck, where his stubble was already prickly, as Bodie's was also, the dark shadow that made him look savage and fuckable. Sandpaper and silk, Bodie's face rubbed down Doyle's body, treat and torment, until both their sounds of pleasure struck each other in the air like notes of horn and cello. They harmonised, crescendoed, until their chord resolved and silenced itself in warmth and sleep ... and a single "I love you" almost too low to hear even by whichever of them spoke. Doyle didn't know who'd said it, but smiled, his arms, his heart and his bed full now.


End file.
